‘Blue’ By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer February 11, 1994

Director: Derek Jarman Cast: Derek Jarman; John Quentin; Nigel Terry; Tilda Swinton Not rated Compare prices for this movie Find local video stores More movie shopping Save money with NextCard Visa

No, you are not having a monotonal hallucination. You are watching Derek Jarman's accurately named "Blue." The only visual highlights (save for a flash image right at the end -- which I apparently missed by looking away just then) are imperfections in the film: a hair caught perhaps in the projector lens, or a snow-like effect when the film changes reels.

This can get dizzying, nauseating or hypnotic -- depending on your sensory makeup or your attitude to visual deprivation. You can tell yourself you are watching ocean, sky or the inside of your eyelids. You may retreat to the more comforting darkness at your feet.

But what counts is the relentless sameness of it all, the sense that you are caught in one, unyielding bout of suffocation. This is about sightlessness, the blindness before death -- caused by that infamous, anagrammatic disease known by four cruel letters. In touching, autobiographical testimony by Jarman (assisted by John Quentin, Nigel Terry and Tilda Swinton), the dying filmmaker -- he has AIDS -- tells us about his coming darkness.

But Jarman is disgusted with self-pity, resentful of charity and angry about indifference. He avoids self-serving poignance -- reaching a grainier, more satisfying strain instead. This is about him raging against the dying of the light. Instead of watching for colors, you listen to them, as Jarman et al speak of "blue funk," "bluebottle buzzing," "sky blue," "blue of my heart" and "the fathomless bliss of blue."

Jarman, who has made a consistently challenging series of works, including "Caravaggio" "The Last of England," "Edward II," "War Requiem" and "Wittgenstein" has gone -- once again -- with bold intuition. You can dismiss the project as laughable, or you can appreciate his confidence and conviction.

There is so much more here than purple-prosey dread. Jarman offers evocative, darkly humorous testimony about his visits to the waiting rooms of St. Bartholomew's and St. Mary's hospitals in England. He makes amusing mincemeat of charity, homophobes and even gay activists who coin such pseudo-valiant euphemisms as "living with AIDS." He speaks cynically and bitterly at times, yet switches to tenderness for a companion known as "H. B." (to whom, along with "All True Lovers," this movie is dedicated). His words are restless, a battery of passing, original turns of phrase. You may sit through "Blue" with nothing to see, but you leave it rich with images -- fading pictures of one man's life.

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